1.  Executive Summary

1.1  Why Environmental/Health Baseline Data is Needed

Since the dawn of the nuclear age, the emphasis in all nuclear programs has focused on the development of new technologies and weapons.  There was little concern over radioactive contamination.  It was assumed that the accumulating radioactive waste would be handled as needed in the future.  Now, the future has arrived.  One serious consequence of this careless approach was that workers in the government nuclear weapons complex were exposed to radiation and ingested radionuclides.  The general public was exposed as well. 

“For many years, the government promoted a legacy of neglect toward those [nuclear weapons] workers who helped build the strongest national security in the world.  We failed to take care of our workers who became sick.”

                              Former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, January 11, 2001.

Many of the nuclear weapons sites are amongst the most contaminated areas in the United States.  Unfortunately, the extent of contamination has only been fully realized in the past 15 years. Thus, many people living in and around those areas have most likely been exposed to radiation.  Without documented history of the level of contamination, and an environmental baseline, or starting point, prior to the onset of contamination, it has been virtually impossible to know whether ill health was related to exposure from various weapons sites.  One of the few exceptions was a county-by-county national study relating weather patterns to nuclear testing fallout from the Nevada Test Site (NTS), and determining exposure factors for one radionuclide, Iodine-131.[1]

HþME has observed that most communities near nuclear weapons sites have not had an adequate baseline from which to interpret a rise in suspected health problems.  The baseline provides the backdrop for comparison necessary to determine the source of environmental exposure and to track health histories.  With the baseline in hand, people living near these potentially contaminated sites will be better able to assess if they have been impacted by the site, and better equipped to take actions on their own behalf.

HþME envisions the Yucca Mountain Legacy Project as a proactive initiative to develop an environmental/health baseline before contamination from the NTS or the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository reaches surrounding communities.  Phase I of the project is a stakeholder driven process to assist current residents immediately downstream.  Our study will also be important to future generations who will be downgradient of the Pahute Mesa underground nuclear weapons testing area. 

1.2  Potential Contaminant Sources in the Region

Nevada Test Site activities have had a demonstrated impact on former employees, Atomic Veterans and “downwind” communities from the above ground nuclear weapons testing era.[2]  However, it is yet to be seen how the underground testing of nuclear weapons will affect people living nearby. Since 1962, about one third of the 921 underground nuclear explosions at the Test Site were detonated below the water table.  For many years the Department of Energy (DOE) has assumed that the radioisotopes released in underground detonations become essentially trapped in the vitrified rock mass that results from the enormous heat released in these explosions.  However, the discovery of tritium and plutonium away from the detonation sites clearly shows that the DOE’s assumption was incorrect.  

In a prior Citizen’s Monitoring and Technical Assessment study, the Nevada organization Citizen Alert assessed the viability of the existing DOE water monitoring system for the Nevada Test Site[3].  This report demonstrated that the DOE has not properly placed water monitoring wells in a judicious manner so as to guarantee intercepting potential radioactive plumes from the Pahute Mesa.  Thus, groundwater contamination from the NTS may already have reached areas off of the test site (off-site), and represents a future health risk.  In another part of NTS, tritium contamination (radioactive hydrogen) from the Yucca Flats testing area may flow downward through valley fill layers to the Lower Carbonate Aquifer, and could have reached the Ash Meadows spring complex within ten years.[4]

The US Ecology waste facility outside of Beatty, Nevada, has had tritium contamination leak into the groundwater to high levels, detected as early as 1982[5], and this could also continue to move with the groundwater to the Amargosa Valley residents only ten miles away.

The other potentially enormous regional source of contamination is the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository.  If the site opens at the currently allowed capacity of 70,000 metric tons,[6] this amounts to some 11 billion curies of radioactivity.[7]  This assumes that the current legal cap of 70,000 metric tons for Yucca Mountain is not removed, which the Bush Administration would like to do.  In a bill drafted by the administration this year, “the Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act,” the cap would be lifted, opening the door to at least double the capacity of the repository.  As with the NTS, the radionuclides in the waste destined for Yucca Mountain will have various rates of mobility in the natural environment, and longevities, with half-lives ranging from a few decades to many thousands of years.  In addition, the containment canisters themselves and proposed titanium drip shields are composed of hundreds of thousands of tons of heavy metals which will become toxic as they break down and begin to move into the environment.  Despite the “best” efforts to contain the waste, the natural setting inside Yucca Mountain will eventually corrode the disposal containers, releasing the heavy metals and radioactive elements.  They will be carried by water and air to the accessible environment.  There are widely differing estimates as to when the contaminants will actually reach nearby communities and natural habitat.

1.3  Taking Proactive Measures for Health and Habitat

Given the likely future contamination of environmental resources near the NTS, US Ecology, and the Yucca Mountain Repository, HþME is initiating the establishment of an environmental baseline. We hope to provide some useful data, as well as illustrate the larger and ongoing need.  HþME wishes to encourage other agencies to continue this line of work, and hope to contribute in the future again ourselves. 

It is important to understand that since there is no feasible method to clean up the radiation-laced water, the recourse, in the event that dangerous levels of radionuclides are found in groundwater, is for the DOE and Nye County to provide an early warning system that will detect radionuclides advancing towards fresh water wells with sufficient time to take action to protect the public by either importing water, or by relocating residents.

1.4  The Legacy Project Water Sampling Program

As a first step in HþME’s baseline process, a number of residential wells and springs in the Amargosa Valley were identified that are strategically located downgradient of the NTS, US Ecology and Yucca Mountain for water sampling and analysis.  The wells represent new water quality sampling points, and the springs overlap with some past water sampling by governmental agencies.  The nearest government monitoring wells to those HþME selected are part of Nye County’s Early Warning Drilling Program.  They are aligned perpendicular to water flow paths from Yucca Mountain and are intended to provide site characterization information related to the Yucca Mountain Project, and an early warning to residents of contamination as a result of the repository.  HþME’s sampling data were expected to compliment the existing Nye County water data, with some overlapping analysis to allow for comparison of similarities and differences.

Eight wells and two springs were sampled for this report. Field data was taken from one additional well.  All of the wells are completed in the valley fill aquifer. The springs are on the northern end of Ash Meadows. The water that flows from these springs is believed to originate in the Lower Carbonate Aquifer[8].

The quality of all the samples was good. None of the measured parameters exceeded any of the drinking water standards established by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (see tables 10.1, 10.2 and 10.3).  Generally, the radioactivities and non-radioactive analyte concentrations were comparable to those of Nye County’s water samples.  There were some differences in average beta radiation activity, and a possible inconsistency in the uranium isotope results that would require additional sampling and analysis to resolve.

1.5  Concerns and Recommendations

Both the DOE and Nye County monitoring programs are designed for early warning, to allow time for remedial action in the event of contamination, and not specifically for health baseline assessment.  Although Nye County uses the term “environmental baseline” in their description of the Early Warning Drilling Program, and indeed there is much useful information in their data, HþME believes that more detail is needed for a health baseline.  As HþME understands the Nye County approach to early warning, generally when gross alpha or beta radiation levels are “abnormally” high or above EPA action levels, a more detailed analysis is triggered.  Otherwise, the radionuclide contribution to the gross radiation levels is not determined.[9]  The most recent analysis that has been posted by Nye County shows tritium, gross alpha and beta, isotopic oxygen and nitrogen, and radiocarbon data, but does not show a detailed breakdown.  A breakdown of the radionuclide contributions to the overall radioactivity is needed to fully understand which radioisotopes are being ingested and to what level. 

HþME is concerned that a contaminant from the NTS and/or Yucca Mountain Repository could enter the water supply, but not raise the gross alpha or beta levels sufficiently to trigger a more detailed analysis by local governmental agencies.  There is enough local variation in radiation readings to obscure more subtle changes in the radionuclide profile of the water.  If the water analysis included specific discernment of radionuclide contributions, especially those that could isolate the source as either the Yucca Mountain Repository or the Nevada Test Site, there would be little doubt when a contaminant entered the water system and of what nature.  There would be a clear history of what chemical species had been ingested over time, and the point of contamination would be identified as promptly as possible.

Overall, despite the extensive resources that have been dedicated to studying and attempting to understand the movement and contamination of groundwater in the Yucca Mountain and NTS region, as well as detection of radioactive isotopes potentially migrating off the NTS, significant uncertainties in both areas still exist.  Further “surprises”, such as the detection of plutonium nearly a mile from an underground test location,[10] may again result as time goes by.  Through this study, HþME hopes to encourage as thorough and complete a program of water monitoring as possible in the future, in light of all the uncertainties in the understanding of groundwater movement and contamination, and possible “gaps” in the existing monitoring network.